ClayTrader Review – Everything You Need to Know

About ClayTrader

Claytrader.com is a subscription based trading education site, which markets chatroom memberships, training videos and a weekly newsletter run by Clay. Clay portrays himself as a ‘normal’ guy with no special credentials other than developing a winning trading system after getting smoked during the dot.com internet bubble in the early 2000s. Claytrader portrays itself as a community of like-minded traders helping each other with the goal of reinforcing good trading habits without stress or emotion. Unlike many other chatrooms, this site encourages members to network and connect with each other. The site has many testimonials and example videos of alerts that are pretty convincing and more realistic than many other sites claiming multi millionaire winners. They offer an annual subscription for $99. 

Trading Style

The main trading style revolves around intra-day news based momentum trading of small-cap stocks and some swing trading. The weekly newsletter called Power Profit Scan presents five to eight candidates for potential intra-day and swing trades. Again, there tends to be more attention on small-caps but they do trade also medium and large cap stocks through options.

Chatroom alerts are based on technical set-ups resulting in breakouts/breakdowns and/or some type news catalysts. News catalysts can range from earnings reports, contracts, FDA approvals/rejections, clinical trials, partnerships and sector momentum spillover. While these stocks are cheaper, they are also less forgiving and riskier when the momentum dissipates. A lot of scalpers turn into swing traders and not by choice. For this reason, Clay offers trading courses.

Trading Courses

Claytrader offers everything from basic free YouTube tutorials, podcasts and blogs covering trading basics organized into categories including Trading 101, Trading Psychology, Trade Management and much more. His membership plan called Inner Circle has a $99 annual membership fee and includes the aforementioned. The podcasts are usually interviews with successful retail traders that help to inspire listeners.

The more in-depth training courses of his system are offered through Claytrader University. These courses can be purchased ala carte from $99 to $300, which is similar to the pricing of Investopedia Academy and other education providers. Traders who want to collect all the courses could spend almost $3,000. Claytrader University provides a bundled training program that includes lifetime access to every training course (over 100 hours) and the chatroom, forums and newsletter for $1,997. This includes access to all future trading courses as well, basically everything on the site.

ClayTrader Chatroom

There are three chatrooms in total. The Lounge is a “hangout” area where members release steam and talk about topics outside of trading. The Under $1 chatroom focuses on small-cap stocks priced under $1 and the Over $1 chatroom focuses on stocks that trade above $1. The Forums are message boards and the Newsletter provides Clay’s watchlist of stocks to watch along with analysis and charts.

The chatrooms classify alerts under two categories: in play and coming to life. Clay or his moderators will point out a stock that is “in play” and provide analysis or a stock that may be “coming to life”. They leave it upon the individual to adopt the idea and trade it. The “alerts” are a bit ambiguous and there is a lack of a concise daily track record of every alert or what is considered an alert. Again, unlike many other chatrooms, Claytrader doesn’t directly put out specific buy or sell alerts. Like a real life human scanner, he alerts stocks that are potentially ready to move.

This can turn many people off, as they are not that forthcoming. However, the flipside is Clay wants members to think through the set-ups individually and then decide if the alert is something worth adopting. In this sense, members are nudged to think first and then react prudently based on their own comfort levels. Newbies looking to just jump on the bandwagon will naturally proceed to pile in, but those who are truly students of the market will apply their own rules or use their training from the courses.

Clay does a good job of providing a solid watchlist of “in play” stocks in the morning in addition to the weekly Power Scans newsletter. Prudent traders will be able to find something tradeable every morning. He does a good job of preparing the members for the action.

What Type of Trader is the Service Best For?

The site caters to new and beginning traders as most of the tutorials cover the basics. However, seasoned traders who are familiar with the systems or have their own system can adopt the various ideas presented as alerts in the chatroom, watchlist and weekly newsletter. Since there is so much attention on small-caps and penny stocks, I assume a good chunk of the members are small retail traders with accounts under the $25k pattern day trading rule threshold. ClayTrader’s service would best be compared to services like Warrior Trading, Bulls on Wall Street, and Investors Underground, although the cost is more similar to Learn Plan Profit.

The site claims to have over 4,000 members spanning 170 countries. I like the realistic approach taken by the site. They aren’t flashy or propose everyone will become a millionaire trader or hype a lifestyle. The lessons and style is very practical. The community of traders is notably friendly and helpful. I noticed there wasn’t as much hyping of penny stocks by the members, which is refreshing, especially when it pertains to penny stocks.

Is the Service a Good Value?

The Inner Circle membership gives access to all the chatrooms, forums and newsletter for $99 per year, which is a good value. However, the lifetime Claytrader University program is the best value since it includes all future training courses as well. The single payment for lifetime membership is a great value. This is a relatively good value that can pay for itself with one good trade. Trader training courses cost extra ranging from $99 to $3,000, but the $1,997 Claytrader University lifetime bundle is the best value. While, it’s hard to trust anyone playing penny stocks and small-caps, Claytrader earns points for its 30-day money back guarantee and the lack of constant upselling, which is prevalent in most chatrooms.

Pros

• Great value at $99/year or $1,997 for lifetime University access.
• Great community of compassionate traders.
• Content is always fresh and updated.
• No constant upselling of products and services.
• Very well managed chatroom by moderators that seem to care.
• Winning alerts can produce multiple bagger gains.
• Intra-day trading and swing trading ideas are plentiful.

Cons

• Lack of historical performance of alerts.
• Penny stocks are very risky.

Twitter Buzz

@ClayTrader25 you're doing an amazing job explaining. 📈 #ChartLife

— Luiz Marin (@Luiz11Official) April 4, 2017

Thumbs up for the "Grow rich" course by @ClayTrader25. Nice to have the ability to study at night during "slow" periods at work..#NightShift pic.twitter.com/QPqQjMl2Nk

— Chrander (@Chrander87) March 15, 2017

@ClayTrader25 Is a great teacher in stocks! Check him out 🙂 https://t.co/eOGHytG0DL

— Mister Tactical (@mistertactical) February 25, 2017

https://twitter.com/JeffSwanson14/status/830984788571889664